University of Virginia Library

Graham Greene's Second Thoughts: The Text of The Heart fo the Matter
by
David Leon Higdon

Collected editions offer an author the opportunity for self-congratulation, self-examination, and historical reflection before the volumes "put forth a hasty claim to completeness and . . . a surrender to fate of that field in which all these victories have been won."[1] Many authors, however, surrender the field only after one last skirmish in which they revise the work, either completely rewriting it as did Henry James or extensively revising it as did Joseph Conrad.[2]

The collected edition of Graham Greene, now slowly accumulating on the shelves in its handsome dark green heinemann-Bodley Head bindings, presents the reader with major textual and critical problems, for, like James and Conrad, Greene systematically revised several of his novels. After noting his general dissatisfaction with the final sections of The End of the Affair, Greene comments in his "Introduction": "So it is that in this edition I have tried to return nearer to my original intention. Smythe's strawberry mark has given place to a disease of the skin which might have had a nervous origin and be susceptible to faith healing."[3] Thus the

miraculous elements so obvious in the 1951 edition simply disappear in the 1974 collected edition since Greene thinks he had cheated himself, his material, and his reader: "every so-called miracle, like the curing of Parkis's boy, ought to have had a completely natural explanation" (p. ix).

None of the novels, however, seems to have received more attentive revision than The Heart of the Matter. In several of the introductions to various volumes Greene voices his distress over the audience's reception of Henry Scobie. In introducing The Burnt-Out Case, he notes: "Success is more dangerous than failure . . . and The Heart of the Matter was a success in the great vulgar sense of that term. There must have been something corrupt there, for the book appealed too often to weak elements in its readers. Never have I received so many letters from strangers—perhaps the majority of these from women and priests. At a stroke I found myself regarded as a Catholic author in England, Europe and America—the last title to which I had ever aspired."[4] And in the 1971 "Introduction" to The Heart of the Matter itself, he complains, "It was to prove a book more popular with the public, even with the critics, than the author . . . The character of Scobie was intended to show that pity can be the expression of an almost monstrous pride. But I found the effect on the reader was quite different. To them Scobie was exonerated, Scobie was 'a good man,' he was hunted to his doom by the hardness of his wife."[5] Greene's estimate of audience reaction is not overstated. Anthony Burgess, himself sensitive to Catholic nuances and religious niceties, believes Scobie "is able to achieve a near-divine love" and that the reader "is convinced that Scobie, who chose evil with his eyes open, is more aware of its opposite, good, than the merely lukewarm and conventionally pious."[6] Bernard Bergonzi, too, has perceived a problematic goodness in Scobie and "a striking resmblance to Ashburnham in The Good Soldier."[7]

This discrepancy between authorial intention and audience reaction resulted, Greene believes, from "a technical fault rather than a psychological one" (p. xiii), and it is the technical fault he set out to correct when he revised the text in 1971. Scarcely a page of the novel failed to receive the imprint of Greene's desire to change his audience's reaction to Scobie. There are 23 additions—one of major length involving restoration of a manuscript chapter—, 131 deletions, and 158 changes. This extensively revised 1971 text, containing Greene's second thoughts, offers the reader an

excellent opportunity to observe an author clarifying intention, satisfying his own sense of craftsmanship, and remaking his fictive reader, for, as Wayne Booth has argued, the "author creates, in short, an image of himself and another image of his reader; he makes his reader, as he makes his second self, and the most successful reading is one in which the created selves, author and reader, can find complete agreement."[8]

The changes—158 in number—show Greene correcting facts, sharpening idiomatic phrasing, transposing order, and refocusing action and motivation. This cannot be claimed uniformly, for a number of changes, probably compositional in origin and overlooked in proofing, result in demonstrably inferior readings or obvious grammatical and logical errors. In the 1948 text, for example, Scobie searches the Portuguese captain's cabin, ending his search by "closing the box of French letters and putting them carefully back in the top drawer of the locker with the handkerchiefs, the gaudy ties, and the little bundle of dirty photographs" (F47.20). In the 1971 text, he puts them back in the same drawer but this time "with the handkerchiefs, the gaudy ties, and the little bundle of dirty handkerchiefs" (C43.3). Thus an emphatic detail of characterization is lost: it makes considerable difference whether the captain keeps "dirty handkerchiefs" or "dirty photographs." Since "hand-" comes at the end of consecutive lines, the compositor's eye may simply have repeated the word for him. Elsewhere, "The centenarian lifted her lip" (F69.26-27) becomes "The centenarian lifted his lip" (C62.31-32), even though the centenarian is Tallit's grandmother. Such errors as this and "Its" (C57.10) for "It's" (F63.18), "whom" (C62.13) for "who" (F69.8), and "a baths" (C64.15) for "a bath" (F71.18) suggest that the text was not proofed with the greatest accuracy.

Far more often, Greene does correct his sentences. The 1948 text described "the mammies, their heads tied up in bright cotton clothes" (F183.17) while the 1971 corrected this to "cloths" (C168.19). Such phrases as "Two people's happiness were" (F207.7), "Scotch voice" (F121.1) and "I can't see nothing, sah" (F277.11) became "Two people's happiness was" (C189.4), an obvious grammatical correction, "Scottish voice" (C114.13), the generally preferred usage, and "I can see nothing, sah" (C249.37), the deletion of an awkward double negative but not necessarily an improvement since the original phrasing more accurately captured the native speaker's idiom.

Many of the changes are simply indifferent: it is impossible to fathom what motivated Greene to revise "he had left for his exploration only the territory of despair" (F246.1) to "he had only left for his exploration the territory of despair" (C223.11-12), "impracticable" (F301.5) to "difficult" (C269.3), "round" (F83.33) to "around" (C81.11), or "it's" (F90.33) to "it is" (C87.21). Even in revising Yusef's unidiomatic English—"I asked him

to keep his eyes—skinned—is that the right word?" (F218.33) to "I asked him to keep his eyes—bare—is that the right word?" (C199.2), Greene gains little since both words are equally inappropriate. The changes in facts are sometimes jarring to one familiar with the 1948 text, but not overly significant. For example, the Ford (F279.27) becomes a Morris (C251.34), "pink gin" (F58.16) becomes "gin-and-bitters" (C52.26), "M.I.5" (F186.24) becomes "S.O.E" (C171.13)—Greene uses both abbreviations in his 1971 "Introduction"—or "books" (F191.21) and a "bar of chocolate" (F188.13) become "bad novels" (C175.36) and a "box of chocolates" (C172.30-31).

Most of the changes, by far, possess considerable significance for the novel. Near the end of Book Three, Louise cautions Scobie not to drink after midnight since they plan to attend Mass together. The 1948 Scobie thought "it was November the First—All Saint's Day, and this Allhallow's Eve" (F264.12), but Greene changed "Allhallow's Eve" to "All Soul's Night" (C238.34). Whatever damage this does to the Church calendar— Allhallow's Eve is 31 October, All Soul's Night [Eve] is 1 November—the change was appropriate since All Soul's, a feast day instituted late in the tenth century, is a day of solemn supplication for souls in purgatory, a telling image for Henry Scobie's struggle with his tangled loves for Helen, Louise, and God.

Other emendations either change one's understanding of a character's action, readjust facts, or sharpen imagery. It makes considerable difference to a reader whether Ali makes "gentle chuckling sounds" (F38.3) or "gentle clucking sounds" (C34.20) as he treats Scobie's injured hand. The revision, much more consistent with "gentle" and "commiseration," avoids the hint of malevolent satisfaction evident in "chuckling" and quite at odds with the characterization of Ali. Often, revision of a single word felicitously refocuses one's sense of character: when Scobie comments, "It's no good confessing if I don't intend to try . . ." (F232.9), he has a definite sense that he must change if the confession is to have any meaning. When Greene changes this to "It's not much good confessing if I don't intend to try . . ." (C211.22), Scobie's outlook has been effectively sentimentalized. He now hopes there is still some slight good in the act of confession whether he intends to reform or not.

Usually such tinkering, similar to Conrad's revisions, sharpens imagery with telling effect. Originally when Scobie looked at Louise in the Club, he recognized her vulnerability and perceived "the malice and snobbery of the world padding up like wolves about her" (F27.26). By changing "about" to "around" (C25.12), Greene intensified the image of danger, because he now implies that Louise is surrounded, trapped, and caught in the inevitability of attack. Too, seeing the Portuguese captain as a "hulk of flesh" (C49.5) rather than as a "bulk of flesh" (F54.15) presents him as not only being large and overweight but also as being clumsy and awkward. Sometimes the revision picks up the imagery in the sentence and heightens its metaphorical quality. Such explains the revision of "ran"

(F83.24) to "rang" (C81.20) in the clause, "the figures rang their changes . . . like a peal of bells." Scobie's questioning, "If so-and-so . . . then what follows?" (F174.20) becomes an inevitable causal sequence when revised to "If so-and-so . . . then that follows." (C161.13), and Yusef's relationship with Scobie is much more clearly defined when the phrase "My friendship with you" (F162.1) changes to "My friendship for you" (C150.37). The original phrasing suggests a mutual friendship; the revision suggests that Scobie does not return the friendship and is even more isolated from human contact. Whereas some changes merely tighten phrasing—"said softly aloud" (F197.6) revised to "whispered" (C180.12)—others reflect Greene's rethinking of the theological implications of his novel. By changing "when the moment of Grace comes" (F221.28) to "when the moment of Grace returns" (C201.21), he subtly implies that man once enjoyed a state of innocence in Grace, that he has now lost it, and that it may return. "Comes" hints that it will arrive anew and quite unexpectedly. Less significant thematically but quite important emotionally, Greene has substituted "darling" for "dear" each time Helen speaks to Scobie to stress her emotional involvement (F203.14, 205.9, 230.34, 231.9, 281.10, 17, 29, 282.12/C185.32, 187.16, 210.14, 24, 253.10, 17, 28, 254.7). Conversely, Scobie's and Louise's "darlings" become "dear" or simply "you" or disappear altogether to tone down their relationship and to stress their growing estrangement (F192.17, 281.9, 282.24, 283.11/C176.17, 253.9, 254.18, 255.2).

Despite many changes, only four sentences in the novel were completely recast—two of Scobie's and two of Wilson's. Wilson's original evaluation of Louise, "She's wonderful" (F64.22), became "She's too good for him" (C58.23), and his last remark in the book, "I'm straight" (F301.33-34), became "You can trust me" (C269.30-31). Both revisions heighten the comparison of the two men with Wilson praising himself indirectly while condemning Scobie. In the other two sentences, Greene fuzzes Scobie's moral perception. Originally Scobie saw his dilemma with the captain's letter clearly: "he resolved to tell no lie. If the letter were suspicious, he would write" (F53.21-22). He decides not to lie and yet not to report the letter if it is entirely innocent. The sentence becomes "he decided that he would write" (C48.21). Later when Scobie blurts out "To me that means—well, it's the worst thing I can do" (C210.36-37) in explaining to Helen why he cannot simply attend Mass, his sense of loss and potential damnation has become indistinct and almost inarticulate compared with his earlier "To me that means—well, damnation. To take my God in mortal sin" (F321.20-21). However less distinct and emphatic the revisions are, they accomplish Greene's intention of making Scobie less attractive because less comprehending and less anguished.

Only one of the 23 additions is important. The other 22 are minor additions of conjunctions, prepositions, and articles, though emending "a safe" (F108.19) to "a safe place" (C103.6) and "tell a lie" (F155.1) to "tell

a kind of lie" (C144.29) does change the meanings of the sentences. The major addition, though, concerns Greene's decision to reinstate a six-page manuscript chapter (C70-75). Greene explains his rationale in the "Introduction" thus: "In the original draft of the novel a scene was played between Mrs. Scobie and Wilson on their evening walk along the abandoned railway track below Hill Station . . . This put Mrs. Scobie's character in a more favourable light, but the scene had to be represented through the eyes of Wilson. This scene—so I thought when I was preparing the novel for publication—broke Scobie's point of view prematurely; the drive of the narrative appeared to slacken. By eliminating it I thought I had gained intensity and impetus, but I had sacrificed tone" (p. xiii). The chapter tells us much more about the romantic immaturities of Wilson than the moral shortcomings of Scobie, but we see an entirely different Louise. As long as we see her through Scobie's eyes, she remains a mousy, bland object of pity; through Wilson's eyes, she plays Isolde to his Tristran. Here she becomes a perceptive, slightly hardened wife keenly aware of both Scobie's and Wilson's shortcomings. She tells Wilson that the poetry he reads is "too romantic" (C74.16) and that she does not want him (C74.35-75.3). She knows that Scobie will be happier without her (C72.31) and that his "terrible sense of responsibility" (C75.27-28) is not love. The Louise Henry Scobie sees as so vulnerable deftly crushes Wilson's advances with a curt "Oh, for God's sake, Wilson, . . . don't let's have a petting party" (C74.31-32).

The additions and changes pale in significance, however, when one considers the 130 deletions, for it is with these that Greene made his major adjustments in the novel's rhetoric as he deleted words, phrases, sentences, and, at times, even short paragraphs. By muting personal relationships, deleting words of sympathy, compassion, and understanding, and excising religious imagery, Greene made Henry Scobie more bruskly abrupt, less aware of the duplicity of his own actions, and far less imbued with a religious perceptiveness. No longer can one draw comparisons between St. Peter's denial of Christ and Scobie's actions, because Greene deleted the sentence, "Away in the town the cocks began to crow for the false dawn" (F175.12-13/C161.37). No longer can one point to Scobie's awareness of the implications of his actions, since sentences such as "I'm a Catholic. I can't have two wives" (F193.31/C177.27) were excised.

In refocusing Scobie's character, Greene removed the terms of endearment Scobie used with Louise and Helen. "My dear" either disappears or becomes simply "dear." The effect is quite noticeable when "My dear, I've got bad news" (F213.34) becomes "I've got bad news" (C194.22), and "It won't work, darling" (F281.34) changes to "It won't work" (C254.33), because the tenderness or even the facade of tenderness begins to ebb from Scobie's relationships. Next, Greene deleted Scobie's evasions and defenses, usually indicated in the 1948 text by modifiers such as "evasively" (F19.5/C17.17), "accusingly" (F60.3/C54.7), "angrily" (F61.1/C54.36), "impatiently"

(F192.5/C176.5), "apprehensively" (F191.2/C175.18), "wearily" (F192.32/C176.32, F194.7/C177.36), and phrases such as "with pity" (F116.19-20, 230. 32-33/C110.13, 210.13). Scobie now merely smiles (C186.20); he no longer "smiled to hide the danger" (F204.16). Since his love for Helen and Louise, himself, and God becomes murkily confused in his mind, it is scarcely surprising that Greene also increased Scobie's confusion. The 1971 Scobie no longer thinks frequently and lovingly of his God. Scobie's understanding and verbalization of the relationship weaken when sentences such as "he thought, with love, even God is a failure" (F284.6-7), "I love you, but I've never trusted you" (F290.15), and "I love you and I won't go on insulting you at your own altar" (F290.32) lose their expressions of love (C255.34, 261.7, 261.23), no matter how inadequate the original expressions were.

Repeatedly, Scobie's verbalization of his guilt and anguish are softened or deleted entirely. Within twenty lines in a crucial scene in the 1948 text, Scobie admitted "I've been such a failure . . . ." (F194.31/C178.23), "I'm sorry about everything" (F195.3/C178.28), and "He envied her the tears" (F195.14/C179.2), and he continually pondered why he ever wrote "more than God" (F196.18-20, 197.1-4, 260.12/C179.34, 180.10, 235.15) in his letter avowing his love for Helen. Greene deleted these as well as Scobie's moment of decision when he sensed "I would never go back there, to the Nissen hut, if it meant that she were happy and I suffered. But if I were happy and she suffered . . . that was what he could not face" (F195.32-196.1/C179.19). He no longer even denies his own goodness (F172.26-29/C159.30), an important point since denial of goodness, if sincere, increases the reader's awareness of his actual though tainted goodness and signals his worthiness here as in The Power and the Glory. No longer does Scobie bargain with God, asking for death "Before I hurt you again" (F281.28/C253.27), and the night of his suicide, Scobie rejects those "imploring fingers" without achieving his important recognition: "He said to those scrabbling desperate fingers, O God, it's better that a millstone. . . I can't give her pain, or the other pain, and I can't go on giving you pain. O God, if you love me as I know you do, help me to leave you. Dear God, forget me. But the weak fingers kept their feeble pressure. He had never known before so clearly the weakness of God" (F296.5-13/C265.15).

Because Greene deleted so much religious imagery and so many overt references to moral and theological terms, one may conclude that he indeed wished his revision to be a reply to those who would make him a "Catholic novelist." In the much revised first chapter of Part Three, Book Two, Greene deleted Scobie's reaction to Helen's arguments. He no longer responds "heavily as though he were accepting a penance" (F194.1/C177.31), nor does he later promise "with a sense of despair, as though he were signing away the whole future" (F203.30-31/C186.10), nor does he refer to his sense of corruption as a coating of his stomach which he "can never void" (F259.6-7/C234.14). Even Helen's comments often lose their religious overtones. Greene deleted "You are a Catholic. I wish you weren't, but

even if you weren't you hate not keeping your word" (F216.14-16/C196.30) from Helen's letter to Scobie and also dropped the phrase "if you add just one more?" (F232.12/C211.26) from her question "What difference does it make," asked when she and Scobie are discussing sin and confession. Interestingly, one of the most important comments about human love, one accorded Wilson, was also deleted. As Wilson walks away from Scobie's house nursing his nosebleed, he no longer senses a futility in all acts of love: "He looked out over the landscape of baking earth and bleak iron huts towards the Scobies' house as though he were examining the scene of a battle after the defeat. He wondered how all that dreary scene would have appeared had he been victorious, but in human love there is never such a thing as victory: only a few minor tactical successes before the final defeat of death or indifference" (F241.9-16/C219.8).

The many other deletions, like the numerous changes, less affect the presentation of character than they tighten phrasing and correct imagery.[9] Most readers probably regret the deletion of such similes as "with the roguery of an old elephant" (F69.33-34/C63.1), which described Father Rank's manner of speaking to Tallit, "like the too mature remark of a child" (F191.21/C175.36), which characterized Helen's reaction to Scobie's work, and "they lifted discretion between them like a cradle" (F203.23-24/C186.4), but when Greene revised "et cetera and et cetera" (F242.31) to "et cetera, et cetera" (C220.19), he avoided an elementary awkwardness, and when he changed "lay uncoiled and ruffled like an angry snake" (F62.15) to "lay ruffled like an angry snake" (C56.2), he certainly sharpened the image—no angry snake would be uncoiled. Deletion of "selfishness" from the phrase "egotism, selfishness, evil" (F128.16/C121.5) and "dissatisfaction" from "melancholy, dissatisfaction, and disappointment" (F15.21/C14.11) avoids redundancy.

In the "Introduction" to the novel, Greene stated that "this edition for the first time presents the novel as I first wrote it, apart from minor revisions, perhaps more numerous than in any other novel in the British Collected Edition" (p. xiii). The two halves of the sentence can scarcely be reconciled. In that Greene restored the manuscript chapter, the novel is indeed closer to what he first wrote. But by the time he completed the other revisions, many of them anything but minor as he claims, the novel had become strikingly new. As Greene wished, few readers will be able to respond to the 1971 Scobie as they did to the 1948 Scobie, for the rhetoric surrounding him is quite different.

Notes